Us: Hey Ben, do you really want a review of a semi-secret last minute Green Day show at the Echoplex in support of their upcoming triple album?

Ben: Yes.

Us: You sure?

Ben: Yeah.

Double shit.

Clearly we've been screwed by a mathematical error of astronomical proportions. Time Warner's bandwidth vs. the earth's rotation, and the gravity offset by Mars Observer, or some shit that looks like this:

Maths

All right, time for plan B.

Us: Hi, Echoplex Booking?

Echoplex Booking: Yes?

Us: Hi, L.A. Weekly here. We would like one ticket to Green Day tonight, please.

Echoplex Booking: The band specifically doesn't want media, just fans.

Us: Um, but, uh, L.A. Weekly?

Echoplex Booking: No.

Us: Pretty Please?

Echoplex Booking: [Dial tone]

Ok. No sweat. We're young and hip. We know how Craigslist works.

Or do we?

Some asshole.

What the?

Ok. Fine. Time to go old school. Scalping. This is nothing a little shoe leather and a crisp $100 bill can't solve.

Also known as a "Benjamin"

The time is now 6:32 PM.

Time to hit the mile-long line at the back of the Echoplex and see if we can exchange that bill for a ticket. But, oddly, not a single person accepts our offer. Clearly they think our currency is fake.

Us: Name a price.

Them: Silence.

Us: Seriously? Money?

Them: [crickets]

Ok. Just who the fuck are these people that are not persuaded by money?

Well, on the surface it looks like denizens from a middle school dance from 1995. Sure, there's classy folks, some of them wearing linen serapes and fedora-like hats, other well-heeled folks who just got off of work. There are also ... um ... families. Sure, that's pretty punk rock, we'll admit. But the rest of the crowd looks like the alternateen kids we resented when we advanced our musical tastes to Fugazi and Sonic Youth in the Great Punk Pretension Switchover of 1996. Out here there's Dookie T-shirts. In Utero T-shirts. Creed T-shirts? Lots of Manic Panic.

There's David, he came all the way in from Huntington Beach. He seems pretty cool. The 25-year-old is wearing a Kerplunk! T-shirt (earning himself two whole punk points) and just really jazzed to be there. How did he get to be there?

"I basically just refreshed, like, a hundred times, until about 10:15 they released more tickets. And I got one," he says.

Wait. What? "Yeah. I screamed when I got in. I was afraid I would hit the back button or something.There's very few things I get excited about ... but this band ..."

Here's what David and his friend's wristbands looked like:

Paul T. Bradley

Greg, a 24-year-old HR clerk from Pasadena had the same experience. "Yeah, I just kept clicking, man. And I got in magically at like 10:20." Seriously?

Some folks got in line without possessing tickets, including Katie and Annie, 17 and 19, who drove all the way from Phoenix. "Oh, we've been here since, like 9 this morning.... We're going to get in," one of them says.

Sure you are.

"We bought the roadies some tacos ..." says Katie.

"... and other things...." says Annie.

Ok, you'll probably get in.

And they did.

Us? We're being asked to vacate the sidewalk because the head bouncer doesn't like the cut of our jib. Maybe we should have provided 'other things'? We give a mean massage, after all.

In any case, who cares what happened after that. Green Day played music that we didn't get to see. Other people saw it. The rest of us cried into the Gold Room's $4 tequila boilermakers until our jukebox money ran out. There's only so many times you can play Dookie before other people get annoyed. Maybe only Green Day knows what that's like. So then if that's the case we found out a little bit what it was like to be Green Day.